Example Use of EMBR with Instant Access

For the example described below, a Windows 2003 Exchange server (IP 192.0.2.24) was backed up three times using the Block backup functionality. The backup ran once as a base backup and subsequently as a block-level incremental backup. This created three recovery points of the E: drive on the secondary storage device. The third recovery point is then selected and IA mapped as the K: drive on a server that has EMBR installed (IP address 203.0.113.24 in the example below):

The IA function results in the K: drive on the server 203.0.113.24 and this K: drive now houses the EDB files from when the Block backup ran (in this example, 3/25/09 12:12:13 PM).

Note. There are two backup sets for Exchange: the data files (on the E: drive in the example) and the application itself on the EXCH volume. Only the data files can be IA-mapped.

EMBR is then launched from the workstation and pointed to the location on the K: drive that contains the EDB files:

The screen shot above shows the opened source file (K:\Program Files\Exchsrvr\MDBDATA\priv.edb) with all the mailboxes displayed in the top-left panel. The mailbox for user Louis is opened and the Inbox of that mailbox is shown (top-right panel). You can now search for mail items, or read emails if needed (as shown in the open window above).

To recover one or multiple emails (or any of the objects shown above: Calendar, Contacts, Deleted Items, etc.) you can either save the items to be recovered to a .pst file, which can be sent to the user, who can read the items, or you can import the items to be recovered directly to an online Exchange server. To do the latter, point EMBR to the Exchange server, which will then populate the bottom Target information with the contents on the “live” mailbox. A recovery is then done by drag-and-dropping the items from Source panel to the Target panel as shown below:

At the completion of the recovery EMBR is shut down and the IA map is unmapped. The recovery and search activities can be done with no impact to the online Exchange server.

Instant Access used with EMBR is one example of the exceptional versatility and simplicity of DPX’s access to snapshots generated by routine Block backups.

Related Topics:

See also. For the latest system compatibility details regarding supported hardware, file systems, applications, operating systems, and service packs, see Catalogic DPX 4.9.0 Compatibility Guide.

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